We’re writing to remind you of the Form 1+’s approaching end of service dates so that you have the opportunity to plan ahead.

On March 15th, 2018, the last warranties tied to Form 1+’s will expire. After that, our support
team will continue to provide troubleshooting support for out-of-warranty printers, and we will continue to offer paid repairs for as long as we still have components available.

Form 1+ build platforms and bottled resin will be available through the end of March 2018, and resin can be purchased in cartridge form afterwards. We expect to have print settings available for the resins currently formulated to print on the Form 1+ at least until the end of September 2018. Form 1+ resin tanks will be available until the end of September 2018.

After these dates, we will continue to provide consumables for as long as supplies last. We appreciate your support of Formlabs, and are looking forward to answering any questions you might have here.

Interesting. So what this means is that after September 2018, thee will be no spare parts or consumables such as the Resin Tank or Build platform. And that repairs will only be available as long as components are available, which may mean that if you run out of galvanometer let’s say, you won’t be able to fix the printer?

Perhaps you may want to have your legal department look into the laws concerning availability of spare parts for products sold both here in the US, and other parts of the world, such as Europe.

Just to give a simple example, you should check the Song-Beverly Consumer Warranty Act (aka The Lemon Law), which states that manufacturers of most household electronic goods that sell for more than $100 have to provide spare parts for up to seven years, regardless of warranty status.

Other states are covered under similar laws, and the EU has even more stringent laws.

Speaking of the California Lemon Law, It states that the manufacturer must make spare parts available, which also gets to the problem we’ve been having with certain parts (like lasers) not being available from FormLabs.

Section 1793.03 of the Lemon Law stipulates that any manufacturer of a TV, stereo, computer or similar electronic device worth at least $100 “shall make available to service and repair facilities … functional parts to effect the repair of a product for at least seven years after the date a product model or type was manufactured.”

It also says spare parts must be available “regardless of whether the seven-year period exceeds the warranty period for the product.”

So perhaps if we really wanted to press the point, we could invoke the Lemon Law to obtain repair parts from FormLabs. I don’t think that is what most of us want to do, nobody wants to be adversarial, but then again, it needs to start with FormLabs showing some good faith in dealing with their customer base.